[WikiEN-l] Personal information (was: Edward Senft)

[Poor, Edmund W]

Edward Senft wrote:

> Under this logic, Angela's IP address is public
> knowledge and I did nothing wrong. I only used her IP
> address to figure out that information.  

We have all made an implicit agreement not to bring up aspects of
others' personal lives here on the mailing list or on the Wikipedia
website. Perhaps now is a good time to make this agreement explicit.

I happen to work for, well, a certain company which I would rather not
name. I scrupulously avoid bringing it up (even though you could easily
guess it from my e-mail headers). To avoid any conflict of interest, I
almost /never/ write anything relating to my company's services or
products -- and if I do, and someone reverts it, I always leave it
alone. I will /never/ get into an edit war or similar dispute about my
company -- otherwise they'd probably fire me.

Please, don't reply by saying that the Blah Blah Company would never do
that, or anything that mentions my company's name. I'd really like to
leave my employer's business out of it completely.

Similarly, as contributors or sysopso or developers we might find out
something "personal" about another contributor. At best, it's poor taste
to bring it up -- unless they themselves clearly invite discussion.

For example, I am a member of the Unification Church and don't mind
people talking about my membership in it. Erik (Eloquence) even calls my
church a "cult" and I don't mind. Note that it's only because I said I
don't mind that he has the "right" to mention my church affiliation.

The same goes for openly gay contributors, Republicans, gun nuts, pro-
and anti-abortion folks, etc. The line between discussing personal
information and 'making personal remarks' is a thin one, so we ought to
be careful.

Ed Poor
Wikien-l Admin